


A Christmas Cupcake

by spj



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Christmas, Cupcakes, M/M, i know its not christmas shhhhh, shhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 22:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10522959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spj/pseuds/spj
Summary: In which Ray thinks about Christmas and what it means, and Mick winds up with a flaming Christmas cupcake.





	

**Author's Note:**

> shaddup i know its not christmas  
> but cw sends everything i love crashing into the ground and i decided i'd better post this or there might not BE a fandom by the end of this year  
> i STARTED writing this at christmas, that counts, right?  
> speaking of christanity, i wanna give a shoutout to ben h, who will never see this (tbh tg) but he really was the impetus for this fic. basically he told me a bit about his complicated relationship to christianity, i wanted to do something for him (not being christian myself), failed epically, and this is the result.
> 
> EDIT: ok so anon has let me know that ray palmer is probably jewish, and upon googling, it seems that his mother is jewish, which makes him jewish, but he also said he was atheist. its slightly late to change the story now haha, but i'll keep it in mind for future ones!!
> 
> WARNINGS: one-line vague description of a suicide attempt, more alluded to than anything, if you want to skip, just skip the entire section when Ray's thinking about christianity (from "his own relationship to the holiday..." to "that's what he remembers when christmas rolls around...")

When they all boarded the Waverider five months ago, they entered a tacit agreement to continue counting time – their own time – by the hours and minutes that have since passed on their own world. They asked Gideon to keep an atomic clock running, and that was how they knew the ticking of their own biological clocks.

That's not really how time should run on the Waverider – Ray _was_ a physicist, so he knew exactly how weird this all was. The literal infinite amount of energy they'd need to travel at the speed of light, even more than that to travel _back_ in time, and even if they were using wormholes there would be a serious case of time dilation...

But even he knew better than to pretend he completely understood what time travel meant for his biological clock, so he just kept to his schedule, kept ticking off days on his hand-drawn calendar, courtesy of Gideon, and kept pretending that, at least while he was aboard the Waverider, every second still meant 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom at 0 degrees Kelvin.

Exactly 175 days after they had started on this crazy little adventure, or 4200 hours, or a little over 15 million seconds later, Ray's calendar told him it was Christmas Eve.

Ray hadn't been thinking much about it. The date had snuck up on him like a cool gust of winter wind – teasing him with its inevitability, but surprised him with its bone-deep chill when it finally arrived.

No one brought it up on the ship, no suggestions of a party or anything, so he guessed that maybe most of them didn't really celebrate the holiday. It made sense, for a crew full of oddities like them.

Sara didn't seem the type to want to be a part of any kind of holiday party that didn't involve drinking everyone under the table in a dingy bar, and he knew Martin was a non-practicing Jew and didn't celebrate anything over the winter. Mick was ever the mystery and didn't offer up any personal information regarding Christmas at all, and Ray didn’t even think Rip _knew_ it was Christmas Eve, glued to his mysterious anomaly-seeking screens as ever. Even Jax, who Ray had expected to maybe say something about Christmas, had only quietly asked Gideon to make a couple Christmas-themed cookies and took them to his own room to eat in solitude.

But Ray got it. His own relationship to the holiday, after all, was a bit complicated.

It wasn’t like he had a big hang-up with Christians, or anything. He had grown up in a Protestant family – church on Sundays, bible study on Wednesdays, youth group on Saturdays, and mission trips over the summers, the whole shebang, and it was fine. It was a way for him to meet cool people and hang out with friends and family at the same time.

Then, as he grew older, it became less fine. The list of things he was allowed to do became shorter and shorter as his pile of sins became longer and longer until he started to wonder if he deserved to live at all. And after one night when whirring lights and loud sirens slid like water over his glassy view, he thought through the hazy smoke that maybe he wanted things to be different.

He’s better now. Not fully, but _better_. He has a fulfilling job – _jobs_ – friends, a family –

That’s what he remembers when Christmas rolls around every year: his father’s laughter over the shredding of wrapping paper, his mother’s giggles whenever he got his head stuck in a box – that’s what he remembered from Christmas, and that’s what he was going to remember now, or a hundred years from now. Things like Christmas music, Christmas gift-wrapping, and sitting by an open fire still brought him warmth and comfort. They reminded him of family.

And it’d be nice to have a little of that today.

“Gideon, can you please – ”

“Done, Mr. Palmer.”

 _Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire_ began to play quietly in the kitchen, and Gideon unearthed a couple bottles of sprinkles and a few tubes of red and green frosting, as well as a tray of untouched cupcakes.

Ray smiled. “Thanks, Gideon,” he said, and immediately set to work on making the best Christmas cupcakes _ever_.

After a couple tries with the sprinkles and the frosting thing and discovering that there’s a good reason pastry chefs have to go to pastry school, he remembered that he was the Atom, and was in possession of a shrinking suit.

He was in the middle of running around on a mint-green cupcake with piles of big flat sprinkles in his hands and laying them out in a little Mickey Mouse pattern he had traced out with a toothpick while large, when Mick wandered in, clearly in pursuit of a drink as he was wont to do.

Mick’s eyes narrowed as soon as he caught sight of the self-moving sprinkles, and with a grunt, he grumbled, “Make it a double.”

“Will do, Mr. Rory.”

When Gideon produced the drink, though, Mick didn’t leave immediately and Ray took that as an invitation to return to normal size and make friendly conversation as if he hadn’t just been running around like an undersized elf of Christmas cupcakes. “Do you celebrate Christmas, Mick? I guess you don’t really seem the type, but that’s kinda mean of me to say, huh? Just going off stereotypes like that – not that criminals _can’t_ celebrate Christmas, it’s just, with the whole spirit of giving and stuff, that just doesn’t seem like your type of thing to do – ”

“Cool it, Haircut,” Mick grunted.

Ray shut up.

Mick knocked back the rest of his beer and slid the glass across the counter for a refill. Ray’s eyes followed the motion. Gideon obediently took the glass and replaced it with a full one.

After knocking back the second drink, Mick set down his glass with a loud clanking sound. “Snart was the one who did the holiday stuff, not me,” Mick finally said.

“Oh, Mick, I’m so sorr – ”

“Lisa did the decoratin’,” Mick continued like Ray hadn’t spoken. “Snart ‘nsisted on getting presents, so we did.”

When it seemed like Mick wasn’t going to say anything more, Ray tried again, “Mick, I’m sorry?”

Mick rolled his eyes. “I don’t remember Christmas.”

Ray was just about to point out the logical inconsistencies there when he realized Mick must have meant the Christmases with his birth family not his… chosen family. See, Ray was getting better. “The times with Leonard and Lisa must have been fun, though,” he offered.

“Eh,” said Mick, and something about the way he made that one, guttural sound filled Ray with warmth.

Ray gave a big smile. “Want a cupcake?”

Mick eyed him suspiciously. “Clean your suit before you ran around on it?” he finally asked, kicking his feet back on the counter.

Ray groaned. He hadn’t. “I’m sorry, Mick,” he said sheepishly. “I’ll… get you one of the ones I made before…” he offered, before remembering that he had eaten them all and left the rest outside Jax’s room. Damn. “I mean, I’ll make you another one – yeah, I’ll make you another one! And I’ll ask Gideon to – ”

“Whiskey cupcakes, Mr. Palmer?” Gideon said, voice like dry, dry wine.

“Sorry, Gideon.”

“It’s no trouble,” Gideon said. “Wait thirty minutes, Mr. Palmer and Mr. Rory.”

“Thanks,” Ray said, feeling somehow taken aback.

Ray broke his conversation with Gideon to look at Mick, another apology ready, but something in Mick’s eyes stopped him. Maybe it was just his own imagination – and maybe it was, because the set of Mick’s lips and the furrow of his brow was all the same – but maybe, maybe, maybe, the constantly burning fire that seemed to rage inside Mick at all hours of the day might have been a tiny bit quelled, quieted down by the subtle smell of baking in the air. His dark brown eyes were only glowing embers now.

Ray sat down next to Mick. “I’ll make you the best Christmas cupcakes,” he promised.

Mick squinted at him, and with a grimace, finally said, “Do what you like,” before taking another swig of his beer.

Ray positively beamed.

 _Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire_ started playing again. The new cupcakes came out of the oven piping hot and perfectly firm, because Gideon didn’t make mistakes. Ray was a lot less coordinated out of his suit than in it, and the frosting came out everywhere, but in the end, he had crafted an only slightly misshapen whiskey cupcake with mint-green frosting piled up high on top.

And, just for them, Gideon drizzled it in whisky and flambeed the finished result.

Ray watched as Mick’s eyes lit up with the flames, glowing, just a little bit, with the childish wonder that defined Christmas in Ray’s heart.

Or maybe it was just the fire reflecting off Mick’s bald head.

But either way, that one short moment, from the time the flame was lit to the time it went out, felt nothing short of magical to Ray.

He beamed widely, ignoring Mick’s suspicious glance.

Why so cross? It’s Christmas! Everything will be alright.


End file.
